Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Culinary Quandries: A Vegan Dinner Party - e-book review

I have long been a fan of the recipes by Janet at the taste space blog, so I was pleased to be asked to review an e-cookbook, A Vegan Dinner Party by Janet Malowany, Anya Kassoff and Allyson Kramer (published by Erudition). Given the combined extensive experience of these writers, there is no surprise that this is a collection of innovative vegan recipes. These recipes are far lighter than the usual rich dinner party fare and yet still impressive.

Crispy Beer Soaked Sweet Potato Fries

The cookbook is aimed at people who are not familiar with vegan cooking. The introduction gives an overview of veganism and vegan ingredients, with a promise that you wont miss the meat, dairy and eggs in these recipes. At the end of the book are a few notes on unusual ingredients. While I doubt these recipes would appeal to some of the hardcore carnivores that I know, I think anyone who is interested in trying new dishes would enjoy them. Most of the recipes are gluten free too.

Black Bean and Avocado Enchiladas

The recipes are arranged into Starters, Mains and Desserts. The Starters include some great dinner party ideas like the Roasted Red Pepper Hummus and the Stuffed Jalapenos. I was not keen on the inclusion of a couple of salad recipes for starters. That may be just me as I am sure I do see salads listed with starters elsewhere. And the Chickpea and Apricot Salad with the Pineapple Ginger Cilantro Dressing looks rather tasty.

The Mains section has some showstoppers that I would love to be served at a dinner party: Black Bean and Avocado Enchiladas, Broccoli Stem Risotto, and Cellophane Noodles with Crispy Vegetables. A few recipes like the pizza or the onion flowers are in need of accompanying dishes. Some ideas for menus would be really helpful and would bring together some of the recipes in the book. More notes about making meals ahead would also be useful for dinner party planning.

The Best Vegan Pizza

The Desserts section is packed with the sort of spectacular recipes that make a dinner party memorable. The dishes are healthy and fun but have oodles of flavour. How good do these twists on recognisable recipes sound: Vegan Panna Cotta Teacups with Raspberry Compote and Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie with an Almond Coconut Crust!

Tamarind Roasted Eggplant and Chickpeas

I was excited to review the book because it motivated me to try some of the recipes. It was easy to choose recipes I wanted to make. I still have many more I want to try. (NB All the photos in this post are my own except the cover photo at the top). Here are the recipes I made:

Crispy Beer Soaked Sweet Potato Fries - these were easy and tasted different to regular fries. The beer gives them a yeasty hoppy flavour that moderates the sweetness of the sweet potatoes. They were soft inside with crispy bits on the outside and very moreish. I would be more likely to serve them as a side than a starter but I can see them making a repeat appearance in our kitchen.

Black Bean and Avocado Enchiladas - this was a complicated dish that I made on a weekend when I had enough time. It is just the sort of thing I would spend time on for a dinner party. It tasted great and looked attractive too.

The Best Vegan Pizza - as a regular baker of pizza, I was initially dubious about the claim that it was the "Best" but I was won over when I made it. The base was 100% wholemeal and so soft and bready. The sauce was so easy, so rich and so delicious. I used vegan cheese because I had some Notzarella but I agree it is not essential.

Tamarind Roasted Eggplant and Chickpeas - I really enjoyed this curry with rice but E thought it needed something else with it. We both enjoyed the leftovers on a wrap with some avocado and tomato.

Apple Pie Parfaits - this was my most challenging dish. The apples took ages to cook, my timing was all wrong, and I had bought a vegan yoghurt for the recipe that I found tasted awful. I ended up using dairy yoghurt and only had enough of it for one serve; the remaining apple and nuts went into my porridge. It looked attractive and tasted nice but did not remind me of an apple pie. Nor did the apple and date filling taste like caramel to me. However it would be a refreshing dessert in summer.

Apple Pie Parfait

The recipes I tried were delicious and would stand up to being part of a dinner party menu without weighing you down. I would have liked to try more of the desserts but most of them were either too summery for this time of year or too rich to justify making it for our small household.

I was interested to look at the e-book formatting. I have only used a few e-cookbooks. This one was the first I have seen that isn't just a pdf document. It showed me the potential of online publishing. I loved the drop down menu, the section for the reader to type notes and the ability to include video demonstrations of techniques. Every recipe had a photo and some had step by step photos. While I still love to hold and browse a hardcopy cookbook, I am fascinated by the technological capabilities of e-books. I was quite amazed at how easy it was to browse this e-book.

What I really disliked was the need to click between ingredients and step by step instructions. It is best practice on the internet is to minimise clicks. Many of these clicks seemed unnecessary and it made it awkward to be clicking backwards and forwards between the ingredients and the instructions while making dishes. I have since discovered that while the ingredients just on one page on iBooks, when viewing the e-book online the ingredients stay at the bottom of each page that has the instructions for that recipes. I prefer the online recipe format but the iBooks download had a better photo display.

Overall I would certainly recommend A Vegan Dinner Party for anyone who wants to cook and share interesting vegan recipes.

Giveaway by Janet: One of the authors, Janet, is currently holding a giveaway of this e-book on her blog at the taste space. You need to be quick as she will draw the winner on 20 June 2014.

To Purchase: A Vegan Dinner Party is now available to buy directly on the Erudition website, where it can be read on computer/tablet via the web browser and downloaded for offline reading as iBooks or Kindle formats.

Disclosure:I was given a free e-book voucher by Erudition. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions are my own.

How lovely that you got to review this (although what a busy year for you with recipe / cookbook reviewing!). It sounds like there are some excellent dishes and I was curious to read your thoughts on the formatting as I have tended to be wary of e-books for some of the reasons you mention. It sounds like there are pros and cons.

Thanks Kari - I feel like the cookbook/recipe reviewing is good for my health as they are such good recipes. I thought this was one of the most interesting e-cookbook formats I have seen - but strange that that format was different on ibooks to the online one. It does give me hope that they are getting better, though I would be sad if they ever replaced hardcopies altogether

GREAT review, Johanna! I certainly do appreciate your honesty. As a cookbook collector for many years, I have found it difficult to explore the realm of ebooks. As you say, there are pros and cons.

I love that you actually tried some of the recipes. The Sweet Potato Fries sound quite inviting:) Too bad about the parfait. I have never tried vegan yogurt but having fresh dairy yogurt in the fridge just waiting to be "dressed" makes that Apple Pie Parfait sound mighty good!

Thanks so much for sharing, Johanna and thanks to Janet for the give-away!

Thanks Louise - I love my hardcopy cookbooks but I am fascinated by new technology. The parfait actually came with a cashew cream which sounded good but I just didn't feel my blender was up to it. I really liked the apple and nuts on my porridge but it would have been horrid with the vegan yoghurt I bought because I tried baking a small cake with it and the taste of the yoghurt was too strong for me.

Hi Johanna! Looks like you'll be warming things up at the picnic, the Letter E is all yours! I hope Sylvia will be helping with the packing of the basket:) Thank you so much for joining in on the fun! It's going to be another great year for the Picnic Game!

I think if anyone was going to go vegan, they would need a cookbook to steer them in the right direction of substitutes for things like eggs and gelatine and...bacon! I love the idea of this cookbook and think it has some great recipes xx

Thanks Charlie - I know what you mean but this is not the book to give much in the way of substitutions - it is really about making the sort of food that you might eat anyway as a meat eater but not think of it as vegan, assuming that meat eaters have some meatless meals in their lives (I know a few carnivores that I think just might have meat at most meals!)

Any cookbook with interesting vegan meals in it is good by me! The only thing up there that doesn't appeal strangely is the parfait (it makes me think of breakfast rather than dessert!) the rest of it looks great. The fries look divine. Are they just soaked in beer and baked?

Thanks Joey - I quite like the idea of a parfait as a summery dessert - and they do look pretty. But this one didn't wow me. I think apples aren't the sort of food I would usually choose here. Janet has the fries on her blog - they are meant to be soaked for 15 minutes but I soaked mine for 1 hour and they were very beery.

Fun to read your review Johanna. You managed to make so much! I really want to try the enchiladas. I've never had enchiladas but I love all the ingredients in these. Great suggestion on menu plans. That would definitely be helpful as that's sometimes the hardest bit of preparing for a dinner party.

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.